With the Professional Regulation Commission’s release yesterday of the results of the June 2012 Nurse Licensure Examinations, the Philippines has technically produced 27,823 new registered nurses. Last February, nearly 23,000 passed the same examinations by the PRC. So that translates to around 50,000 new RNs in six months!
First question, where now do these new nurses go? The first automatic answer would be “in call centers.” That may not necessarily apply to everyone in the rosterbut definitely, it’s a hard slap on the face for our new nurses, or even for any other professionals who, all through the years, have painstakingly performed the duties of a nursing, accounting, engineering student for example only to end up giving customer service over the phone! In fact, even if call centers are “always” there, this does not necessarily mean automatic hiring because call centers in general have specialized set of requirements that have to be satisfied by an applicant, nurse by profession or what not.
And whether or not these nurses applied for call center work out of freewill does not in any way justify the fact that nothing has this government done so far that will seriously combat the issue of surplus of nurses in the country (DOH used to have this program inviting jobless nurses to become nurse-midwives but it did not appeal that much given the ridiculous compensation). A nursing guide site reports that last year alone, some 100,000 nurses (I suspect this is underrated) were jobless. That’s quite entertaining for a course that is number one, one of the most costly and number two, one of the most in demand!
Speaking of demand, some quarters have expressed that offering nursing courses in colleges and universities around the country should be stopped temporarily until those who don’t have jobs get one. This seems legit considering the huge backlog of nurses our country has. In 2005, CHED suspected such a huge backlog could be attributed to the proliferation of fly-by-night nursing program-offering schools. And now, seven years later, we are still where we are, drowned in a sea of jobless nurses.
I know of a nurse who said that even in the provinces and rural areas, finding volunteer work these days proves to be really tough (so he’s eyeing chances for a medical representative position). Well, that if a nurse wants to do volunteer work. But I think these nurses did not take up the course only for the sole purpose of compassion for those who need compassion. A lot of nurses actually want to work in exclusive hospitals in major cities with the end in mind of accumulating experiences needed for the promise of a job abroad. Because their parents, aunts, neighbors work there and are earning much—stuff like that.
And we can’t blame them. Who, in his sane mind, would stay here longer and watch their family starve when greener fields out there in another country miles away from home attract our nurses to the promise of decent food on their family’s table? That’s why we can’t blame parents telling their sons and daughters, “Pag-nurse g’yud dong ha! Pag-nurse gyud ‘day ha!” Even if it means to them selling their properties or loaning from a bank. It’s just actually a matter of survival.
So until now, economic considerations are still present in a student’s decision as to what college course to embrace. But in an ideal country, passion should really come first before anything else. That, in one way or another, makes our country not an ideal country. Sighs.
On a lighter note, I was browsing through yesterday’s results and was very pleased to learn that nursing graduates from Cebu dominated the top 10 list. Cebu Normal University pulled off a perfect passing with 172 of 172 takers making the cut, 12 of whom became topnotchers. Velez College came up with five topnotchers while the Southwestern University and UC-Banilad had one each. Congratulations!